Android Wear Will Bring a New Wave of Wearable-enabled Apps

Google has announced its official wearables platform and it's called Android Wear. The core of this software experience is Android, but the interface and interaction will be based around intuitive swipe gestures, cards, and voice control. App developers aren't being left out in the cold--Google has a preview SDK so devs can figure out how to make their apps work on Android Wear.

Google has announced its official wearables platform and it's called Android Wear. The core of this software experience is Android, but the interface and interaction will be based around intuitive swipe gestures, cards, and voice control. App developers aren't being left out in the cold—Google has a preview SDK so devs can figure out how to make their apps work on Android Wear.

We're in for an entirely new kind of app experience with Android Wear, but not like you'd expect. There aren't simply going to be shrunken down apps to install on Android Wear devices; app developers will be able to implement existing apps on both Wear and Android devices. The apps will still run on phones and tablets, but they will be able to interact with and display information on smartwatches.

The biggest change in application interaction will be the card UI, which we have a blown up version of on Android now. Features like notifications, playback control, and messaging will be easy to integrate into Android Wear apps. The sample UI patterns for Wear apps stress glanceable information and as little user interaction as possible. You shouldn't have to tap at the watch every time you need it to do something.

Google is stressing a minimalist aesthetic for Android Wear apps for usability, but also because they must fit different form factors. For example, both square and round watches. Developers can start playing with the SDK now, but the first Android Wear devices won't be out until later this year, possibly at Google I/O.

Ryan Whitwam is a freelance tech/science writer and fan of all things electronic. This long-time skeptic and former research scientist is a lover of the em dash and a defender of the Oxford comma. He also writes for Geek.com and ExtremeTech.
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